featuring guest authors; crafting tips and projects; recipes from food editor and sleuthing sidekick Cloris McWerther; and decorating, travel, fashion, health, beauty, and finance tips from the rest of the American Woman editors.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

GUEST AUTHOR MARGO BOND COLLINS ON RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE

photo by Peter van der Sluijs

Multi-published author
Margo Bond Collins teaches college-level
English courses online, though writing fiction is her first love. She enjoys
reading urban fantasy and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of
her free time daydreaming about vampires, ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and
other monsters. Learn more about Margo and her books at her website and blog.

Running for Your Life

A few years ago, I started running as part of my exercise
routine. I don’t really like it, exactly. I’m not especially good at it. I tend
to be better at the stretchier kinds of exercise—yoga and such. But I’ve
discovered that running is kind of addictive. I like the meditative state I can
reach when I finally hit my stride, and the way that running gives me time to
let my body do its thing while I spend some quality time up in my head. Many of
my plot problems get worked out when I’m running. So it’s perhaps not
surprising that Elle, the heroine of my latest release, Legally Undead, would also take up running.In her case, though, she is literally
running for her life:

Graduate courses in history don’t prepare one for running away from a
vampire. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to the gym. “Out of shape”
was an understatement. He caught up with me easily, just as I reached the
corner of the nearest building. I felt his hand brush the back of my neck, felt
his fingernails--claws? something sharp--dig into the top of my back.

With a final burst of speed I didn’t know I had in me, I rounded the
corner into a pool of light. And ran smack into a man walking out the door.

I think “bowled him over” might be an accurate description. He’d been
carrying a stack of books, and they went flying everywhere as he and I went
down. I think I skidded across him and rolled to a stop--I know I ended up flat
on my back on the concrete apron in front of the door, staring up at the sky,
just in time to see Greg do some complicated flip over me.

And like many of us who come to running out of a desire to
live a longer, healthier life, she overdoes it a bit at first, and has to come
to terms with the fact that becoming a real runner takes time—especially for
people who begin life as exercise-phobes:

I turned over, ready to spring out of bed, and instead rolled up into a
groaning ball. I hurt all over. Every single muscle. My arms felt like they’d
been pulled halfway out of their sockets. My neck was stiff, my calves felt
like they were contracting up into my stomach somewhere. The sheets scraped
against my battered knees like sandpaper.

From now on, I vowed, I was going to hit the gym every single day. If I
was really going to continue to live, I needed to be able to get away from
vampires that attacked me, and that meant being able to move. Quickly. And
reliably. If I couldn’t trust my body not to go into the fetal position when I
tried to move it, I wouldn’t survive long.

Although she doesn’t keep her vow to go to the gym every
single day, she does manage to survive—even if she has to keep running longer
than she ever anticipated!

So what do other exercise-phobes do to overcome a reluctance
to hit the gym (or the track)?

Legally Undead

A
reluctant vampire hunter, stalking New York City as only a scorned bride can.

Elle Dupree has her life all figured out: first
a wedding, then her Ph.D., then swank faculty parties where she’ll serve wine
and cheese and introduce people to her husband the lawyer.

But those plans disintegrate when she walks in
on a vampire draining the blood from her fiancé Greg. Horrified, she screams
and runs--not away from the vampire, but toward it, brandishing a wooden letter
opener.

As she slams the improvised stake into the
vampire’s heart, a team of black-clad men bursts into the apartment. Turning
around to face them, Elle discovers that Greg’s body is gone—and her perfect
life falls apart.

Newsletter

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SCRAPBOOK OF MURDER

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

SLEUTHING WOMEN II: 10 MYSTERY NOVELLAS

LITERALLY DEAD: an Empty Nest Mystery, Book 2

SLEUTHING WOMEN: 10 FIRST-IN-SERIES MYSTERIES

A collection of 10 full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem, each the first book in an established multi-book series

A STITCH TO DIE FOR

Book 5 in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series

MOM SQUAD: a Shadow Ops Novella

WE'D RATHER BE WRITING

BAKE, LOVE, WRITE

DEFINITELY DEAD

An Empty Nest Mystery, Book 1

CRAFTY CRIMES

a Trio of Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mysteries

PATCHWORK PERIL

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DECOUPAGE CAN BE DEADLY

MOSAIC MAYHEM

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

REVENGE OF THE CRAFTY CORPSE

CREWEL INTENTIONS

an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DEATH BY KILLER MOP DOLL

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN

THE ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MYSTERIES

Read about Anastasia in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery seriesby Lois Winston. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews called it "North Jersey's more mature answer to Stephanie Plum." Assault With a Deadly Glue Gunwas also a Book of the Year Award nominee from ForeWord Reviews, a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, and a Readers Choice Award nominee from the Salt Lake City Library System. Other books in the series include Death by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, Decoupage Can Be Deadly, A Stitch to Die For, and Scrapbook of Murder, plus three mini-mysteries: Crewel Intentions,Mosaic Mayhem, and Patchwork Peril. Look for more of Anastasia's adventures coming in the future.

About Me

I'm the crafts editor at American Woman magazine; the single parent of two teenage boys and a Shakespeare quoting parrot; caretaker to a semi-invalid, communist mother-in-law from Hell and her demon dog; daughter to a multi-married descendant of the Czars (supposedly); reluctant cat-sitter to Mama's extremely corpulent white Persian cat; a born Jersey girl; and star of my own amateur sleuth mystery series.